


Her Name is Anya

by asgardsaint



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12831318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asgardsaint/pseuds/asgardsaint
Summary: And in her haze, she heard his voice in the dark.





	Her Name is Anya

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. Really.

Gleb Sergeyevich was only a boy, his mother would say it all the time, perhaps in a failed attempt of protecting him from the many dangers of life itself. In fact, if she had her way, he would never have to face again the dark and ugly side of human condition. That damned war had changed everything, it changed her husband and now it was changing her son. She could see it staring back at her, every single moment, every hour of hunger, pain, cold, loneliness and all that anger swirling in his eyes. Gleb was only a boy - her boy - when he left for the battlefield and at some point, while trying to save another life, he was injured in combat. Only to be sent home with a momentarily incapacitated shoulder.  _He will heal, please, let him heal_ , Adelina Vaganova silently prayed and wept as she welcomed her only son with open arms. If she had her way, he would never have to leave his home, his family again.

And yet, the man that came back from the trenches was not entirely her Glebka. Adelina's heart broke for the boy he had been and this shell of a man he now was. She feared he could never be mended back again.

* * *

He hated this place, it was too quiet for his liking, almost dangerous and it made him incapable of being still. Ever since returning home, Gleb found out that he couldn't sleep, nor he could stay awake, he was always lingering somewhere in between. This was not his home at all, his father had been assigned to that damn post and he followed him, like he had done all his life, a good and loyal son. Something in Yekaterimburg unsettled him, the nights were too long, the people wouldn't look him in the eye and the cold made his aching shoulder hurt a hell lot more, but most of all, he hated that family living across the fence, their silence deeply disturbed him, how could they? How dare they? The motherland had suffered for too long under their rule.  _No more_ , he thought.

But still, he could not find it in his heart to feel hatred towards the children. Not after his arrival anyway. From distance, of course he could think of them as cold and spoiled brats, with everything being given to them in a silver platter while everyone else outside of the Romanov's golden palace gates was fighting to survive with so little. In fact, a few soldiers still treated them as such, often making offensive comments to the children. But being there right across the street, all Gleb saw displayed in front of him was a bunch of kids struggling to understand what was happening in their little world, the sick Tsarevich was disheartening to observe. It was not their fault that the sins of the many were bestowed upon them, only the curse of being born with that name.

Alas, there was nothing that could be done about it.

The weeks dragged on and every morning birds would sing along to the eerie, distant sound of church bells ringing across the city and Gleb would leave his small, uncomfortable bed, proudly dress his uniform and go out for a walk and fresh air. He would pretend it wasn't because of her, the former Tsar's youngest daughter. Gleb saw her once, so fast it was almost a glance but he knew it was her, Anastasia Nikolaevna. Oh, how those blue eyes intrigued him. Some mornings, she would sing a sad song only to herself and Gleb would close his eyes and imagine that she was singing to him, lulling his broken soul back to peace. Some mornings, he was met with only silence and this weird feeling that would fill up his lungs until he couldn't breathe. He swore he felt her gaze following him through those barred windows. For quite some time, Gleb walked that same path every day hoping for something he couldn't quite name but he would pretend it wasn't her. Never her. 

* * *

 Sergey Vaganov was summoned to the main house one night, so late it was almost too early. He did not utter a sound. Gleb saw something dark flicker in his father's eyes and then, he felt it, that dreading feeling growing, crawling deep inside his bones. He waited by the window. Waited for a glimpse, a signal of distress, anything. Exhausted, he fell asleep in a chair nearby.

Gleb was trapped, his lungs filled with smoke, his back drenched in warm, thick water, and something heavy across his body, sinking him more and more to the ground. He then realized. It was someone. Dead. _Could it be_? He looked. Blue eyes staring at him. _Dead, she was dead_. He screamed. Thunder and fire disrupted the silence.

He was awake, but he wished he wasn't. All it could be heard was the terror, the screams, the tears, the well know sound of countless lives being ripped apart, destroyed into oblivion. Suddenly Gleb felt like he was five years old and all alone, he turned his back to the window as if it could stop the screaming and the horror happening only a few meters away from him. He could not hear it any longer. Quickly, he left the small house only to walk towards that damn high fence, like a moth attracted to a flame. Gleb could not breathe, his chest hurt, he felt dizzy and about to break into a million pieces. The screams,  _god, the screams_. Unable to walk away, he simply closed his eyes begging for it to end. But now all he could see was blood - the blood of the fallen, the blood of the innocent, his comrades, his father's, his mother's, his own, his blue eyed beauty. Gleb slid to the frozen ground, vomited all his stomach's content and openly crying, he buried his head into his hands.  

* * *

 He sensed something fast moving towards him, but Gleb still found himself frozen to that very spot.

"Glebka! Hurry, my boy!" As soon as he heard his father whispering to him, Gleb sobered up and followed his father into their house again. Once inside, he finally took a good look of his father and truly didn't know what to feel. Relief for Sergey coming back in one piece or despair for what his presence, his stained uniform and pistol meant. Sergey Vaganov wasn't a small man by any means, but there he was, pacing the floor, shaking like a leaf caught on wind, sweating profusely as if death herself was chasing him. _Maybe it was_ , Gleb thought. His father seemed to be in a rush all over their small living room, talking up a storm.

"I could not do it! I could not do it, they were children, only children", he kept chanting mostly to himself. Gleb searched for his mother, only to find her huddled over something in their kitchen, with her back turned to him and by the motion of her body, he knew his mother was crying her poor heart out. His stomach sank. Sergey shook him back to reality by his shoulders. "You need to leave Gleb, take her and leave. Now!"

Gleb was utterly lost in his thoughts, "Ta-Take who, father? Wha-what happened? I don't -" He looked again at his mother. Adelina looked right at him this time and there was no more confusion clouding his mind, she wasn't huddled over something, it was someone. She was trying to stop someone from bleeding to death. Gleb started to realize the implications of what Sergey was rambling non-stop, every piece of the puzzle was slowly falling into place. The stench of blood and death all over his father, the horror etched in his mother's eyes. He feared for them and for what would happen from that moment on.

"They ordered us to shoot everyone, Gleb! The adults, the children... Oh, Glebka, the children, what have I done? What have I done..."

He heard it then, her little moans of agony, the painful struggle of trying to speak only to end up drowning herself in her own blood. It was her. The Grand Duchess. His blue eyed beauty. Covered in bruises, bleeding from a big gash on her head, with her torso filled with smallish red spots - blood, _her blood_. Gleb felt a cold chill going down his spine. _No, not her, please, not her_. Sergey caught his attention again. "Now look at me Gleb, this is really important, a friend of mine will help you along the way to Perm, but you must go now. Take her with you, leave this place, cross the border, do whatever you must do and go-"

"But father-" Gleb started to question only to be cut off by a desperate, pleading Sergey.

"No, you listen to me! Don't let me leave you a legacy of this! A legacy of murder, guilt and shame before you. She has a chance of escaping all of this pain, Gleb, a real chance of surviving this tragedy, but she needs our help, she needs your help. And I order you to go!"

Gleb was his father's son, after all. 

* * *

 Gleb went into the woods, carrying an unconscious grand duchess in his arms, his shoulder feeling as if it were on fire but he never dared to stop for rest. It was just impossible. If everything was still going according to his father's plan, at this very moment his mother was packing every little belonging the Vaganovs had and would head out to meet him in Odessa in a few weeks time. Sergey should be informing his superiors that he had buried the girl somewhere else along with her younger brother, to not raise suspicions of what had truly happened that cursed night. Gleb feared he would never see neither of his parents ever again. The desperation of his father for him - and only him - to leave at that very same hour told him everything he needed to know. From that moment on, he was completely alone. The horrifying news of a slaughter of defenseless and sick children could not simply spread through the country, people would riot, there would be some extensive damage control to be done and it would start with the firing squad, it was just the way things were in the new order of things.

He ran further into the unknown night, he ached and bled, ripping open various small cuts among the thick branches. His legs were tiring fast but by god, he dared not to stop. No. Anastasia would live and Gleb was going to make sure of that, even if it cost his own life. He promised his father. _A good and loyal son_. So he strengthened his hold on her and kept going. Through the mist, through the woods, through the darkness and the shadows they went. 

* * *

 They reached Perm with the help of Ivan Fyodorovich, an old friend of his father. But the journey itself, up to that point it had not been easy. No, not at all. Many times, when they had to sleep in the cold woods by some dying fire, Gleb thought she would die right there in his arms. For hours, he prayed and held her as she painfully cried for her family. In the mornings, he sang to her as if to keep Anastasia with him just a little longer. Gleb almost wept when help finally arrived for the both of them. She would get to recover in a hospital and then, they both could leave. They had a long way to go. He promised her during one of those fearful nights, he would take her to her grandmother in France. She would be safe. He would do that for her. He would do everything, anything, really, as long as she looked at him the same way she did at that moment. Gleb simply knew that those beautiful blue eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life.

* * *

At the hospital, something finally shifted within her, perhaps it was the notion that the past days were not just a terrible nightmare, but her new reality. A no-name poor oprhan girl, nobody's daughter. Back in the woods, this awful fear of being left alone and forgotten took over Anastasia, but he was there with her, guiding Anastasia through the pain and the fear of death. Singing her lullaby. His voice mingling with her parent's, her loved ones. She remembered everything, everyone, all at the same time, but how she wished to forget their screams during that night, only that night. _Please, don't forget me_.

While awake, Anastasia's whole body ached so very much, one of the nurses told her that she had a long recovery road ahead, but with time, she would be fine. The sad truth is, Anastasia already knew that her body would fully heal someday, all things does really, but in her heart, she knew that the scars would never fade, in fact, they would never close, bleeding forever all through her life and drenching her with sadness. Her parents, her siblings, oh, so many lives lost and how many more would follow after them? In exchange of what? She knew things would never be the same again, she had to become someone else for her name was now a death sentence looming over her. 

Sometimes life can be cruel by just giving you what you desire the most. Anastasia longed for the freedom she never truly had and for a first kiss from her prince on her grandfather's bridge. She had her freedom now, but at what cost? Stripped of her name, her identity, everything she had known, there was so much she would have to learn now and so much that she would have to cope with, it was tiring her and she would just have to think about that later, she truly hoped it was enough.

In her dreams, however, nothing else was troubling her. She could still hear him praying and softly singing in her ear during those mornings, warming her from inside out. Gleb. Her Gleb. That handsome, dark, conflicted son of a soldier that met her gaze through a window once and that was it. She waited for him to pass her by every day. Only to catch a glimpse of the man and those telling eyes of his that intrigued her like nothing else.

Anastasia could feel him holding tight to her hand, keeping up his promise to her. She could feel him everywhere, because without knowing, he was inserting himself into her bruised, shattered soul and eventually, she knew he would mend it with his love for her. She could see it already in his eyes. But now, about to fall asleep once more, she found herself floating somewhere in between dreaming and remembering and just being present.

And in her haze, she heard his voice in the dark.

Distant. In the woods, that terrifying night, filled with worry...

"Hold onto to me... I promise to never let you go."

So close now, right beside her, filled with love.

"Her name is Anya. She's all I have."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Forgive my (broken) english, it's not my first language. Feel free to send love, hate or memes.


End file.
